Samuel Shem Quotes

Basch: So why don't you ask her out?The Runt: I'm scared she wouldn't like me and say no.-So what? What have you got to lose?-The possibility -if she says no- that she might have said yes. Whatever I do, I don't want to lose that possibility.

~ Samuel Shem

We were putting into these gomers our fear of death, but who knew if they feared death? Perhaps they welcomed death like a dear long-lost cousin, grown old but still known, coming to visit, relieving the loneliness, the failing of the senses, the fury of the half-blind looking into the mirror and not recognizing who is looking back, a dear friend, a dear reliever, a healer who would be with them for an eternity, the same eternity as the long ago, before birth.

~ Samuel Shem

The patient is the one with the disease

~ Samuel Shem

A BMS hears hoofbeats outside his window, the first thing he thinks of is a zebra

~ Samuel Shem

Gomers are human beings who have lost what goes into being human beings. They want to die, and we will not let them.

~ Samuel Shem

To do nothing for the gomers was to do something, and the more conscientiously I did nothing the better they got.

~ Samuel Shem

It ain't easy to do nothing, now that society is telling everyone that their body is fundamentally flawed and about to self-destruct. People are afraid they're on the verge of death all the time

~ Samuel Shem

There is no body cavity that cannot be reached with a number fourteen needle and a good strong arm.

~ Samuel Shem